Monday, September 21, 2015

Harry Potter has come to Porto... :)

School has started... and that means that all the university students are all walking around in their "Harry Potter" robes. Basically, it brings a little bit more sunshine into our lives every time we see someone in those robes. :) We're odd... we know, but at least we're happy! :) Today for p-day we went to Porto. We took the metro from João de Deus up to the stop in Combatentes and then we walked to the mission office to drop off a coat for Sister Pereira. She left her coat here in Gaia when she got transferred, so we took it up to the mission office for her. We talked to Sister Ransom in the office for a few minutes, and then we got back on the metro at Combatentes and went to Trindade. At Trindade we switched metro lines and we went up to the stop in Sete Bicas in the Porto Norte Zone. We got off there and then we walked to the mall called Norte Shopping. We went to see if they had any fall and winter stuff, but they didn't really have anything. We didn't get a ton done but we did get out of the house this p-day. We went and explored Porto a little bit so it was a good day. We got our groceries done in the morning and then we just wandered around. It was pretty nice.

This last week we spent a good amount of time in the house. The weather was ridiculous and Sister Marinho told me that I wasn't allowed to go out in the rain because she didn't want me to catch pneumonia (the way they say "pneumonia" in Português is so cool). On Tuesday the weather was so bad that the elders were soaked completely... we were pretty dry. :) Wednesday was rainy for part of the day but then in the afternoon it stopped and we went out and worked and then went to our Reunião de Correlação with the ward mission leader and the ward missionaries. After the meeting Xeca was walking with us and this guy named Carlos came up and started asking for money but once we said that we were missionaries he got really upset and stormed off. He knew we weren't going to give him any money so he didn't want to talk to us anymore. Hello people! Salvação é muito mais importante do que dinheiro! Ó pessoas.....

Thursday we finally got to spend the whole day working! And then all of our plans fell through and people didn't want to talk to us on the road. It was a little bit frustrating, but it all worked out okay. Friday we did weekly planning and we planned a ton of visits with members this week to get ready for a big activity this weekend. On Saturday we're going to show "Meet the Mormons" in the capela... if we get the film. It's an act of faith, we don't the filme yet but we're still planning on showing it. Hopefully the bispado will get it before the weekend. Anyway, we're giong to stop by members' houses this week to do lessons about the importance of sharing the gospel. People don't really like to hear about member missionary work, but this activity for "Conhece os Mormons" is super good and we want the members to invite their friends and their family members to see it because it's not a weird activity and it's not something that people would feel uncomfortable going to. It's a movie... and it's a really good movie too! :D I love this movie so much. 

Daddy, you were asking about the investigators so I'll give you the rundown on all of them. We stopped Rodrigo a few weeks ago in the road and he said he wasn't really interested because he likes science and then he started saying something weird about the iluminadi (or something like that... I don't know what it is), but then the next day he sent us a message to say that because he hadn't been able to read my handwriting on the pass-along card (which is weird because my hand-writing is really nice... :) fact not opinion) he went on the site for the Church and started talking with the missionaries online. We taught him the first lesson and it was actually really good. It was probably one of the best lessons I've ever taught on my mission and he came already knowing everything. However, we have not been able to meet with him since. He's always busy but he's going to try to come to the filme on Saturday. Zé is the MMA fighter. We are better than the FBI and we figured out his name and his work schedule so that we knew when we could call and set up appointments with him. He's one where we never meet with him unless we have a member with us. We had passed him off to the elders, but then they didn't show up to an appointment they had set with him and he was offended (and this is why the elders don't have friends). We ran into him on the road one night on the way home and he ended up talking for about and hour and a half.... it was interesting. We discovered quite a lot about him, but mostly that he needs a lot of help. Yeah, he needs help. Then there's our investigator Carlos.... he's vry secretive and refuses to say anything about his personal life, but I'm really annoying and I keep asking him questions and we're pretty sure that he's on probation or involved in something really sketchy... we were talking to the Bishop's wife last night and she has all the same theories that I have, but she said that she's been planning for weeks now to just follow Carlos one day and see what he does. :) Silly members. We've also started knocking doors around where Zé lives and we found a guy that was taught by the missionaries 10 years ago and he now lives with his girlfriend but he said that we could come back and talk and that he would try to come to the filme at the capela. It will be good. Last night we also got a referência from the Sisters in the ward of Gaia 2. There's a lady that lives in the zone leaders' area that stopped the sisters on the road twice and told them that they had something that she wanted for her family. The elders stopped by but her husband didn't like them, so now we're going to stop by this week and see if we can conseguir a ensinar a família. 

I'm out of time now, but this week I have stamps and cards that I will try to get mailed off. I love you all and don't forget to read the scriptures carefully and apply them to yourselves. That's the way that we are supposed to use them. :) Also, I'm sending the video about the Português scriptures to you all. I'm going to try to send the video in English. If I send the Português one to you... sorry. We watched the video during Escola Dominical ontém e eu quase chorei. Eu choro sempre agora. It's not true, I don't cry a ton anymore but I just get pele da galinha when I see these videos. I love them. Watch the video and appreciate the sacrifices that were made for us all to have the scriptures. :)  


Amo vos muito, muito, MUITO!!! Fiquem bem e façam coisas boas. Não façam asneiras (Xeca tells me that every day).

Amo vos!

Little Sister Smith

P.S. The pictures are of this morning when they were putting up the big posters about the movie activity on Saturday and then Sister Runyan and me outside of the mall in Porto today. :) Foi fixe. 





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